Chapter 5 SCHILLER.

Schiller's Interest in ?akuntalā-Turandot.

While the Orient, as we have seen, cast its spell over Germany's greatest poet and inspired the lyric genius of his later years for one of its most remarkable efforts, it remained practically without any influence on his illustrious friend and brother-poet Schiller. If Schiller had lived longer, it is not impossible that he too might have contributed to the West-Eastern literature. As it is, however, he died before the Oriental movement in Germany had really begun. At no time did he feel any particular interest in the East. Once, indeed, he mentions ?akuntalā. Goethe had drawn his attention to a German version of the Gītagōvinda and this reminded Schiller of the famous Hindu drama which he read with the idea of possibly utilizing it for the theatre.116 This idea he abandons owing to the delicacy of the piece and its lack of movement.

An attempt has been made to prove that to Kālidāsa's drama Schiller was indebted for the motive of his "Alpenj?ger," but it cannot be said to have been successful.117

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Though there was no direct Oriental influence on Schiller's poetry, there is one dramatic poem of his which indirectly goes back to a Persian source. It is Turandot. The direct source for this composition was Gozzi's play of the same name in the translation of August Clemens Werthes, which Schiller, however, used with such freedom that his own play may be regarded as an original production rather than a version. The Italian poet based his fiaba on the story of Prince Kalaf in the Persian tales of Pétis de La Croix.118 Now, as has been pointed out by scholars,119 the name of the heroine, who gives the name to the play, is genuinely Persian, Tūrān-duχt, "the daughter of Tūrān,"120 and although the scene is laid in China, most of the proper names, both in Gozzi and Schiller, are not at all Chinese, but Persian or Arabic. The oldest known model for the story is the fourth romance of Nidāmī's Haft Paīkar, the story of Bahrāmgūr and the Russian princess, written 1197.121 Whether Schiller was aware of the ultimate origin of the legend or not, he certainly made no attempt to give Persian local color to his piece, but on the contrary he studiously tried to impart to it a Chinese atmosphere.122 It is interesting nevertheless to notice that when Turandot was given at Hamburg (July 9 to Sept. 9, 1802) its real provenence was recognized, and, accordingly Turandot was no longer the princess of China, but that of Shīrāz, her father being transformed into the Shāh of Persia and the doctors of the dīvān into Oriental Magi.123 At Dresden the same thing happened, and here even Tartaglia and Brigella, who had been allowed to retain their Italian names in Hamburg, were made to assume the Oriental names of Babouk and Osmin. The specifically Chinese riddles disappeared, and instead of Tien and Fohi, Hormuz was now invoked.124

FOOTNOTES:

116 A Letter dated from Weimar, Feb. 20, 1802. Briefwechsel zwischen Schiller u. Goethe. Stuttg. (Cotta) s. A., vol. iv. p. 98.

117 W. Sauer in Korrespondenzblatt f. d. Gelehrten u. Realschulen Württembergs, XL. pp. 297-304. Against this view Ernst Müller in Zeitschr. für vgl. Litteraturgesch., Neue Folge, viii. pp. 271-278.

118 Les Mille et Un Jours, tr. Pétis de La Croix, ed. Loiseleur-Deslongchamps, Paris, 1843, p. 69 seq.

119 Hammer, Red. p. 116; Pizzi, Storia della Poesia Persiana, p. 429.

120 Cf. name of Mihrāb's wife, Sīnduχt, Sh. N. tr. Mohl i. p. 192 et passim; Pūrānduχt, daughter of Xusrau Parvīz, Mīrχvānd tr. Rehatsek, vol. i. p. 403.

121 See Ethé, Gesch. der pers. Litt. in Grdr. d. iran. Phil. ii. p 242.

122 See Albert K?ster's essay on Turandot in Schiller als Dramaturg, Berl. 1891, p. 201.

123 K?ster, op. cit. p. 212.

124 Ibid. p. 213.

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